“Seriously?” replied the other man. Who could blame him for being a little skeptical, assuming he knew anything at all about Silva’s history of dominance?

Here’s where the first was obliged to do a brief reenactment, complete with Silva’s fake wobbly legs, the quick jolt to the jaw that followed, that lolling head of the very recently concussed. I have to admit, it wasn’t a bad impression. Then again, it’s hard to do the fake wobbly legs better than Silva himself, who, let’s be honest, was doing a fantastic imitation of a wounded fighter right before he became an unconscious one.

But once the physical details of the upset at UFC 162 had been covered, that’s when the talk inevitably turned to Chris Weidman, the new UFC middleweight champion. Who was this guy, anyway?

“I don’t know,” said our first ticket agent. “He’s good, but Anderson just made one mistake.”

I can understand how Weidman wouldn’t be crazy about such a description, but he’d probably better go ahead and get used to it. Because of the way the fight ended, he’s going to hear it a lot between now and his first title defense.

There’s nothing Weidman can do about that now, and nothing he could have done to avoid it. It’s an inevitable consequence of winning the title as a result of the former champ’s hubris. It’s only natural for people to wonder whether he could have taken the belt without at least a little help from its former owner.

I guess we all knew that Silva would fall eventually, but I doubt many of us saw it going this way. Probably we assumed that when he finally lost it would be because he stayed too long, grew too old, got too slow. Maybe we thought that when that night finally came, we’d be able to spot it right away. There, we’d say when it happened. He’s not himself anymore. He’s done.

But that’s not how it happened at all. It wasn’t as if Silva wasn’t himself on Saturday night. If anything, he was just a little too much so, and in the end it got him knocked out.

It had to be a satisfying moment for Weidman when that left hook caught up with the man who couldn’t be troubled to move his feet in order to avoid it, but I can’t help but wonder whether MMA fans will regard this as his success more than Silva’s failure. If so that would be at least a little unfair since the outcome itself isn’t anywhere near as shocking as the route we took to it.

Somewhere in the lead-up to this fight, Weidman (10-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) became a fashionable pick. Fellow fighters rushed onto his bandwagon. Fans and media followed. This was supposed to the guy who Silva (33-5 MMA, 16-1 UFC) had to take seriously. Maybe that’s what made this display more entertaining than maddening.

When Silva clowned around with Patrick Cote or Demian Maia, it felt like he was doing it at the expense of providing the blistering finish we knew he was capable of. He was depriving us of something he knew we wanted, and doing it out of stubbornness or boredom or belligerence, which made us mad at him. The degree of difficulty just didn’t seem high enough in those fights.

But against Weidman there was the distinct sense that he was doing this particular tightrope dance without a net. When he paid the price for it, that suspicion was confirmed, but it might not translate into immediate and lasting legitimacy for the new champ.

That’s why no one needs the rematch more than Weidman. Taking the title from the greatest MMA fighter of all time is no simple thing, so it should come as no surprise if it turns out to be a feat that must be accomplished in installments. The first fight told us that he has the potential to make Silva pay for treating him with the careless disdain he wielded against lesser opponents. It’s the second fight that will tell us whether we’re dealing with a changing of the guard or just a painful lesson for a still dominant Silva.

The rough part is, we’re probably in for a bit of a wait first, and so is Weidman. Silva said he wanted to take a few months off to rest and reconsider before deciding on a rematch. Even if Silva changes his mind tomorrow, Weidman could very easily spend the next six months or so with a portion of the MMA world looking at him like he’s got the UFC middleweight title out on loan.

You don’t just beat Silva once and call it good, after all. The knockout was such a spectacular sight that, even for those of us who saw it with our own eyes, it was still a little hard to believe. We’re going to have to see it again just so we can convince ourselves that it was real.

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is probably the greatest female fighter on the planet, which is a tremendous feat. So why are we seemingly so obsessed with arguing about whether she could beat up men?